Politicized data and spatial methods: Generating understanding of contemporary educational policy environments and interventions

Abstract

Both experimental and qualitative approaches to education policy research often assume singular perspectives that highlight only their own advantages, while ignoring their limitations at the cost of greater understanding. For instance, as the current climate for educational policy research seeks to make education research a hard “science,” there is a profound emphasis and preference among policy actors and funders on “data mining” of large-scale datasets and research methodologies that focus on causation– such as randomization, quasi-experimental methods and meta-analyses. This focus on “objective” research contributes to the politicization of research findings that serve the interest of particular policy agendas that are, in fact, no more evidence based than other alternatives. In this chapter, we highlight efforts to promote experimental research of digital data and note the politicization of research that results in two cases: randomized evaluations of voucher programs and meta-analyses of education interventions. Then, the chapter highlights specific methodologies, and the advantages and limitations of these approaches, that offer unique ways of discerning and inquiring into patterns in education opportunities and outcomes. These methodologies include geographic information systems (GIS) and critical GIS, bibliometrics and network analyses of social media. The chapter illustrates these different approaches with descriptions of pertinent empirical studies conducted by the authors and others.